LOGICAL

SYMBOLISM AND MATHEMATICAL PLATONIC SCHOLIA By Robert S. Brumbaugh I

IN THE

scholia for representing validating forms of argument. Sometimes symbolism and sign-design will provide an excellent clue to the ideas and the habits of imagination at work in a tradition: this is true of logic in the seventeenth and twentieth centuries, and may perhaps hold for it during earlier periods. By the second century A.D., the Academy having given up its sceptical position in favour of a more eclectic and dogmatic one, Plato's admirers were were "logical". Confronted by Stoic proposianxious to show that the Dialogues tional calculus, and Peripatetic Aristotelian "analytic", it is not surprising to find scholars advancing the claim that "we have logic, too". The compiler of the pseudo-Platonic Definitions, Albinus, Galen, Apuleius, the source used for the section on dialectic by Diogenes Laertius, and Theon Smyrnaeus reflect a shared conviction that logic is important for the study of Plato, and also that "logic" is something close to Aristotelian syllogistic. Albinus, for example, hunts down syllogisms in each of the three Aristotelian figures in Plato's Phaedo to make his point. (His example of a third figure hypothetical and Parmenides as he says it is, but perhaps it could-with is not actually in the Parmenides, some ingenuity-be thought of as "implicit" there.)' As the Platonic tradition moved into Neo-Platonism, Plato's categories were defended against Aristotle's by Plotinus, and Porphyry wrote his Introwhich (as Moody shows very elegantly in the duction to theCategories of Aristotle, the epistemological and logical emphasis of shifts William of Ockham) Logicof in a Platonic direction. Platonic scholars-Proclus, Damascius, the Organon Olympiodorus-wrote commentaries in which a serious attempt was made to exhibit the arguments of some dialogues recast in strict syllogistic form. At the same time, a series of "syllogism diagrams" appeared in connection with Ammonius' commentary on Aristotle's logic. Probably the explicit origin of most of the older Plato scholia dated from this phase. By the ninth century, the Byzantine renaissance, from which our oldest Plato manuscripts that are still extant date, logical schemata comprised an important part of the funded footnotes to Plato. This is a brief outline of the Platonic tradition's adoption of "logic". To understand its details, causes, or implications, we must go back to the Platonic dialogues themselves. Plato's works seem to show a mind with a fertile geometrical imagination; his "mathematical" passages make sense if and only if one mentally supplies the diagrams intended, and can appreciate the suggestiveness of spatial metaphor and symbolism that these diagrams supply. There is no single standard set of metaphors or symbols that Plato always prefers;
1 This instance of anxiety to find every form of syllogism in Plato, at the expense of the text, occurs in Albinus' Introduction (Plato, 45

history logic deserves study. Academy The starting-point is to examine the symbols and designs used in the Platonic

r6le of the

in the

of

further

One

Works,ed. C. F. Hermann, Leipzig, 1875, XV, p. 159, lines 3-5).

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ROBERT S. BRUMBAUGH

we find inscription, cross-classificationin combination matrices, linear order of linked terms in proportion, branching "genealogical" classifications, intersecting cycles, concentric circular constructions, employed in turn. The Platonic tradition had no set of original Platonic diagrams, but did have the same type of geometrical imagination-which, indeed, one cannot escape in analysing the dialogues themselves. Later scholars, however, seem to have been less inventive, and to have settled for two or three types of symbolism that the dialogues clearly suggested. Lambda-figures (used both to give the genera of persons and concepts), matrices (with various conventions and degrees of complexity in their order), linear linkages for inferences involving repeated relations of class-inclusion, dominate the scene. There also appear, however, technical mathematical diagrams (to illustrate, for example, the "diagonal of our diagonal" joke in the Statesman),and the standard arc-and-triangle syllogism figures mentioned above. We would expect the example of Stoic work, the philosophical doctrine that mathematics is the proper guide to philosophic method, and the difficulty (frequently, the sheer impossibility) of recasting Plato's text into a syllogistic formalization, to operate together to deflect Aristotle's logic as the Platonists used it toward something more mathematical, general, and formal than its original intention. We would expect the inherited geometrical designs of thinksuch formalization lead into a to which was symbolic logic ing geometrical, rather than algebraic. We might expect these tendencies to appear in a nonAristotelian symbolization of the syllogism itself. The present study collects evidence to show how far these expectations are justified.2 II The first step in investigating any theory about the nature and function of logical or geometrical symbolism in the Plato scholia is to collect and study the relevant schemata. Until W. C. Greene's ScholiaPlatonica,editors considered these figures unimportant, and only sporadic attention was given them. Greene's volume, with its line drawings of schemata, is a major step in collection and study.3 But the drawings do not intend to reproduce the exact
sThis collection of photographs of symbolic scholia has been made possible by a grant from the Bollingen Foundation, and use of the Yale University Library collection of microfilms of manuscripts of Plato. (For this collection, currently being completed, see R. S. Brumbaugh and Rulon Wells, "The Plato Microfilm Project", Yale Library Gazette, April, 196o.) I also have had the help of Mr. H. V. Botsis, of Yale College, in locating and editing these photographs. Mr. Frederick Ludwig, Head of the Yale Library Photographic Service, has been patient and cooperative; his technical skill and advice have been essential. My colleague, ProfessorRulon Wells, has worked through this material with me in detail; we hope, eventually, to trace these logical schemata further: he is currently working on their appearance and renaissance in the Aristotelian tradition, while I plan to document their decline and fall in the Platonic. Finally, my thanks are due to Dr. Richard Hunt, Miss Ruth Barbour, and the Bodleian Library for their interest and assistance in general, and in particular for the
photograph in ultra-violet of f. 374v of the

Clarkian Plato. 1 William Chase Greene, ScholiaPlatonica, Haverford, Pa., 1938. I have followed Greene's example, in the present study, by limiting my collection to the scholia in B (Bodleian MS. E. C. Clark, 39), T (Venice

SYMBOLISM IN THE PLATONIC SCHOLIA

47

sign-designs and, where this is of special interest, actual photographs provide a useful supplement to Greene's edition. Such photographs are presented, below, to illustrate three types of development of logical symbolism; they include all schemata where the actual design seems to have distinctive features of interest, and also a few photographs of schemata which Greene did not include, in most cases because of their obvious late date. The purpose of these is to show, in actual size, the precise design;because of technical difficulties, the photographs are not perfect, so that the text frequently cannot be read from them, but Greene's edition gives the text for each figure. What can be easily seen, the exact designs of the diagrams themselves, is what is of particular interest for the present discussion, and what offers supplementary information to Greene's edition. The following list includes all the schemata that Greene notes in his edition, with a brief classificatory characterization of each. This offers a survey of the quantity and type of each group in this set of scholia as a whole. Page references are to ScholiaPlatonica.
i. Theaetetus i65d. Greene, p. 26. Two triangular syllogism diagrams (occur only in T). 2. Sophist219a. Greene, pp. 41-42. Extended lamba line-diagram of division (does not i i I a. Greene, p. 91. Line diagram with a three-part division (briefer form 3. Alcibiades in B than in TW). Greene, p. 91. Line diagram of division. Greene, p. 95. Line diagram of division. Greene, p. 97. Genealogical family tree. Greene, p. 98. Genealogical family tree.
Norvin, 32, 19). Greene, p. 94. Line first-figure syllogism diagram (not in BW). occur in W).

4. Ibid. ii ie. Greene, p. 91. Line diagram of division.

Io. Protagoras 341d. Greene, p. 127. Line diagram of division. from Olympiodorus-ed. I2. 13. 14. I5.

5. Ibid. IIze. 6. Ibid. I I5a. 7. Ibid. Ii8e. 8. Ibid. I2oe. 9. Ibid. I2za.

I . Gorgias 450b. Greene, p. 132. Line diagram of division (not in W. The diagram seems
Ibid. 457c. Greene, p. 136. Line diagram of division (not in T). Ibid. 460c. Greene, p. 138. Division diagram with lines and arcs. Ibid. 465c. Greene, pp. 139, 472. Matrices with vertical arcs (column headings added

Ibid. 454d. Greene, p. 135. Triangular syllogism diagram.

i6. Ibid. 471a. Greene, p. 143. Genealogical tree. 17. Ibid. 495e. Greene, p. 159- Polygonal figure showing four classes in their mutual rela-

later (B2) to Arethas' version in B).

2o. Ibid. Greene, p. 161, 2nd schema. Class-inclusion with arcs. 21. Ibid. 501a. Greene, p. 163. Division diagram with lines. 22. Ibid. 502c. Greene, p. 164. Class-inclusion with arcs.

tions. 18. Ibid. 495e. Greene, p. 159. Figure showing class-inclusion by linking arcs. I9. Ibid. 498a. Greene, p. 161. Triangular syllogism diagram.

24. Ibid. 50o8a,2. Greene, p. i68. Mathematical lune figure, showing three types of mean (a version in a late hand occurs in Paris A, fol. i2oV, ca. Timaeus 35). 25. Meno 82b. Greene, pp. 171 -73 gives the set of these scholia. 27-33. Ibid. Mathematical

23. Ibid. 50o6c. Greene, p. I66. Class-inclusion with arcs.

26. Ibid. A simple line diagram in TW, not included in Greene.

square. Marcian Append. C1. 4, cod. i), W (Vienna suppl. phil. Gr. 7), and A (Paris Bibl. Nat. grec 1807). However, I have included very

diagrams illustrating stages of the construction for doubling the

late scholia in these MSS., so that the record of symbolic scholia for them is complete.
4

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ROBERT S. BRUMBAUGH

34. Ibid. A final figure, to prove the double area theorem; Greene's version is that of W, but the figure is more complete, and its intention more clear, in T. 35. HippiasMajor 290d. (Displaced to 294e in W.) Greene, p. 175. Standard line division figure. 36. Ibid. 295e. Greene, p. 198. Diagram of class-inclusion, with arcs. 357b. Greene, p. 198. Division figures, with lines. 37. Republic 38. Ibid. 357a. Greene, p. 205. Line division figure; five numbered subdivisions of a class. 39. Ibid. 389e. Greene, p. 209. Line division figure. 40. Ibid. 398d. Greene, p. 212. Two division. 41. Ibid. 4o8b. Greene, p. 217. Division figure. 42. Ibid. 41xe. Greene, p. 218. Matrix figure with diagonals. 43. Ibid. 413a. Greene, p. 218. Line division figure. 44. Ibid. 41 3c. Greene, p. 219. Line division figure. 45. Ibid. 414b. Greene, p. 219. Line division figure. 46. Ibid. 485c. Greene, p. 236. Triangular syllogism, diagram. 47. Ibid. 5Iod. "Divided line" matrix figure (A, W). 48. Ibid. 534a. Greene, p. 253. "Divided line" table using capitals, numbers, columns, and arcs. 49. Ibid. 546c. Greene, p. 257. Proclus' "nuptial number" diagram of three right triangles. 50. Ibid. 558d. Greene, p. 262. Division figure with lines. 5'. Ibid. 564d. Greene, p. 264. Division figure with lines. 52. Ibid. 582a. Greene, p. 268. Division figures, with lines. 53. Ibid. 587c. Greene, p. 269. "Tyrant's number" ordinal list. 54. Ibid. 6o0d. Greene, p. 274. Division figure with lines. 55. Timaeus2oe. Greene, p. 280. Genealogical family tree. 56. CritiasI I3d. Greene, p. 292. Genealogical family tree; arcs used above columns. 57. Laws 631c. Greene, p. 303. Simple division figure with lines. 58. Ibid. 867b. Greene, p. 347. Division figure with lines. 59. Ibid. 87oa. Greene, p. 348. Division figure with lines. 6o. Ibid. 893b. Greene, p. 354. Division figure with lines. 61. Ibid. 894b. Greene, p. 354. Elaborate classification figure for the ten kinds of motion. 62. Ibid. 895d. Greene, p. 355. Simple division figure with lines. 63. Ibid. 895d, 2. Greene, p. 355. Simple division figure with lines. 64. Alcyon o09v,9. Greene, p. 406. A pair of 2-generation family trees. 65. Axiochus 370c. Complex division figure, with lines. (A and Par. C; not in O). scholia: Thefollowing areArethas' 66. Sophist2I9a. Greene, p. 446. See No. 2, above. i i i ic. Greene, p. 451. Standard division diagram with lines. 67. Alcibiades 68. Gorgias 457c. Greene, p. 466. Division diagram with lines. 69. Ibid. 459e. Greene, p. 468. Division diagram with lines. 70. Ibid. 460a, i. Greene, p. 468. Architectural version of the class-inclusion diagrams with arcs; illegible. 7'. Ibid. 460a, 2. Greene, p. 469. Architectural version; only partly legible. 72. Ibid. 460a, 3. Greene, p. 269. Triadic classification figure, lines. 73. Ibid. 46ib. Greene, p. 470. Triangular syllogism figure. 75. Ibid. 467c. Greene, p. 474. Class-inclusion diagram with a special design, overlapping
arcs. 74. Ibid. 465c. Greene, p. 472. See No. 14, above.

76. 7778. 79. 8o. 81.

Ibid. 468a. Ibid. 468d. Ibid. 469e. Ibid. 474d. Ibid. 475b. Ibid. 476d.

Greene, p. 474. Greene, p. 474. Greene, p. 475. Greene, p. 477. Greene, p. 477. Greene, p. 477.

Architectural class-inclusion figure. Triangular syllogism figure. Architectural class-inclusion figure. Division figure, with lines. Architectural figure. Architectural figure.

83. Ibid. 507c. Greene, p. 478. Architectural figure.

82. Ibid. 502c.

Greene, p. 478. Triangular syllogism figure.

49 Addenda 266a. Small mathematical figure, only in W; described in Hensel, Vindiciae 84. Statesman Platonicae,49. 85. Timaeus49. Late scholia in T. See also No. 26, above.

SYMBOLISM IN THE PLATONIC SCHOLIA

III Genus and Genealogy The most significant fact about the various "standard" lambda and division diagrams is their frequency and the range of location of their occurrence. Divisions and matrices, with the divisions elaborated into trees on occasion, account for thirty-seven of the eighty-five schemata listed above. (Of the remainder, twelve are "mathematical" symbolism, rather than strictly logical; seven are the arc-and-triangle "standard syllogism" notation; six are Arethas' "architectural" design, to be discussed below; seven are transitive classinclusion designs with arcs, with or without abbreviated qualifiers; and the balance are in none of these categories.) The relevant conclusions, while somewhat general, are important. In the first place, these designs suggest the tracing of some branching natural form or relation (such as "family tree"). The scholiast, in this part of his r6le as logician, is concerned with definition and classification, by tracing a rational pattern that is objectively present, rather than by artfully constructing one. And such tree-like patterning is relevant to anysubject-matter; we have a sort of natural all-purpose design, the occurrence of which in every type of context inevitably suggests a formal isomorphism in nature. The late scholion in Paris A, where a mathematical arc-design originally illustrative of an application of mathematics to ethics is simply transposed to clarify and give the rationale of a cosmological passage, shows the suggestiveness for the imagination of such relational patterns, which "show" the same recurrent "forms" in what we might suppose very disparate parts of nature. Nor is this the sole suggestive function. One might wonder whether such classification schemata have, or are thought to have, any explanatory or demonstrative value; and the evidence seems clear that they are so regarded. Among the tree forms, both the simple and complex versions, are the genealogical scholia, where ancestry and family relations are indicated by variations on the "tree". (The point is interesting, since rather different emphases are suggested by the different genealogical designs.) This particular interchangeability of form shows that the metaphor of a "genus" as family remains a living one, or is constantly suggested as a living one, in this tradition. It is hardly necessary to recall to the reader how frequently in Plato's own text genealogical metaphors occur, and the problems are posed in the form of a search for a true and exact genealogy; the suggestion is effectively embodied here. This in turn gives the "naturalness" of the tree more intensity, and also, in so far as the metaphor transfers, gives the "genus" a causal explanatory r6le; a Sophist is what he is because his "intellectual lineage", so to speak, is the illegitimate thing it is. The tree is thus a possible alternative to schematizations which explain or demonstrate causally by transitive class-inclusion or by syllogism. The "matrix", as a classification scheme, has at least as substantial a

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ROBERT

S. BRUMBAUGH

grounding in Plato's text as the "ancestry" or "offspring" metaphor. While it carries in its history use by medical writers in dealing with genetics as well as use by pure mathematicians in dealing with theory of ratios, it is not as clear-cut a "natural" form. What it does do most effectively, however, is to is what gives meaning emphasize relations as definitory of their relata: context in the matrix schematization. The row and column arrays suggest a cut across a continuous field, and in a Platonic context, we may have a feeling that these "cuts" must be made at naturally appropriate places, even though, in a different context, the same design might rather suggest a boxed, sharply separate atomicity of elements and an arbitrary construction of their combinations. If "Logic" is properly formalized by these divisions and matrices, it falls on the side of nature rather than that of artifice; it cannot be distinguished from dialectic; it has no proper separate subject-matter; and it need not be limited to any one set or type of analogical relations in its suggestive and explanatory functions. The figures on Pls. 7 to Io are selected to represent typical designs of matrix and lambda or other branching figures of this type. The Gorgias 47 IA scholion also shows typical, though more than usual, divergence between drafting and lettering as well as completeness of text, in B2, T, and W.

IV
When we come to the lune and triangle "standard" syllogism diagrams, the intersection of two traditions, each with its own proper concept of logic and each with its own distinctive habits of imagination, is directly illustrated. The idea of cutting dialogues into syllogism obviously owes its origin to an Aristotelian logic very different in its assumptions and techniques from the Platonic dialectic of the dialogues. Aristotle himself seems to have deliberately treated the "extension" of terms in his theory of syllogism as a "thin" metaphor. That is, although we are not sure precisely what diagrams he used, we find the tradition trying one or more line segments of different lengths as the natural diagramming, because "extension" is the metaphorical isolation of a single relevant property of the terms under consideration, and Aristotle does not want the suggestiveness of a geometrical symbolization to introduce other properties, nor to commit him to entities corresponding to or plausibly suggested by the properties of his figure. For example, the inscription notation of Leibniz and Euler, or the intersection designs of Venn, give us in their closed circles imaginative representations of determinate actual or possible abstract classes, which tempt us to reify our logic into a scrutiny of the intersections of determinate abstract universals, which may or may not be instantialized, and to think of "existence" as applicable to the circular class and the shaded or starred instance in the same way. Cornford, in his treatment of Plato's theory of knowledge, has shown how this schematization (though one Plato uses himself on occasion) offers a wrong design for Platonic logic; Moody, in his study of Ockham, in showing why a tree is misleading as a pattern for schematizing Aristotle's logic, also indicates why the circular class notion is unsuitable.

SYMBOLISM IN THE PLATONIC SCHOLIA

51

The arc and the triangle schemata seem to have been applied to logic in the sixth century by Platonists commenting on Aristotle; the subject is an extensive one, with many ramifications, which my colleague, Prof. Rulon Wells, proposes to treat in the near future in detail. For the present, we should note that the designs employed have a suggestive effect that results from bringing a net of relations into the foreground, both in the arc design used for firstfigure syllogisms, and in the triangle used for second- and third-figure. This effect, like the matrix or tree, plays down the relata, as the simple linesegment representation of "extension", or the algebraic S-M-P notation, does not. The ancestry of the arc diagrams should be worth tracing. It is quite clear that the numerical details in Plato's Myth of Er presuppose a familiar type of design in which arcs are used to connect "balancing" elements, and that there seemed nothing unusual to Plato in an application of this to connecting pairs of numbers in a series. The inception of a connecting arc design is probably Pythagorean, certainly pre-Platonic, and quite likely the design itself was used both in aesthetic and in mathematical contexts (so that the arc figures illustrating kinds of mean in our Plato scholia would be the original use, and the transfer to a middle term of syllogism as a kind of "mean" derivative from this). By some process of simplification and specialization, in any case, the single arc had come to be used to connect classes related in an argument by transitive inclusion, providing a simple scheme for reasoning such as: "All A is B, all
B is C, therefore all A is C . . ." for any number of terms. But the arcs link-

ing terms remained ambiguous, and the ambiguity surely was more apparent as the Aristotelian or Stoic logic became more influential. For, although two classes can stand in four logically relevant relations, the linking arc suggests intuitively only that they are related. Thus, although in some of the simpler scholia an arc linkage is used as though this were an understood conventional we presently find quantifiers added to the arcs, the design for class-inclusion schematic geometry picturing the existence of someclass relation, the pn, oud, tis compendia giving an algebraic indication of its quantity. The laws of logic being what they are, this schematization will work simply and well for (a) first figure syllogisms, (b) valid sorites; but it breaks down for syllogistic complexes of varied figure, without special rules (similar to those of a Boolean algebra) for operating with the quantifiers. The choice of triangles to schematize relations of triads of terms supplements the lune figures for syllogisms in figures other than the first. The most relevant features of this are (I) the fact that it is the relations, rather than the terms related, which are directly presented; (2) the use of the orientation of the triangle to indicate in which figure the syllogism falls (a convention not always respected); (3) the continued use of abbreviated quantifiers along the sides of the triangle, to specify the relations (it is because these are used that the normal or inverted orientation of the figure itself is not essential to differentiate between second- and third-figure syllogism). I would be inclined to say that the quantifiers and triangles are both moving toward a symbolic system more proper to an Aristotelian view of logic: the quantifiers away from geometry altogether, the triangles toward

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ROBERT S. BRUMBAUGH

a view of separateargumentsor units of reasoningnot easily modifiedinto a largerrelationalfield and net, as the arc notationcould be.

V
Scholia Arethas'"Architecture of Argument" It seems true that there are many individual differences in what we may call spatial or geometrical imagination. Some of us "can't think" without a diagram; others find it a liability. I have been dealing with a record of the "geometrical suggestiveness" of different designs as symbols of formal concepts, where, as in most normal cases, there is a preference for one schematic type rather than another. The diagrams are functional, and some seem better suited than others to their intended function-in this case, to representing abstract relations which are to be used in philosophic explanations of things. The history of logic does in fact show that there is some affinity between the view of logic held and the imaginative mode which logical symbolism takes. In treating the Platonic tradition, however, this normal relation must be qualified, since we encounter two extreme cases where it does not exactly hold. At the one extreme, we have what might be called a "hyperbolic" facility for symbolism, an imagination so active that in any, or almost any, determination of space, it can see analogues to a logical relational plan. This is the case with Plato and with Leibniz, each of whom is able to employ a tremendous range of geometric symbolism without any limiting preference. At the other extreme, we encounter an "ageometrical" mentality, which sees symbolism only as pleasant adventitious ornament to a discussion of terms and verbal statements. This sensitivity to the word as opposed to a visualized "field of meaning relations", or, differently described, this refusal to be distracted by extraneous ornament, typifies one type of scholarly mentality, and in Arethas we seem to have a prime example. Without speculating further on how anyone can compile a total jumble of alternative symbolic traditions as if sign-design didn't matter (as opposed to opening up an indefinite number of possible symbolic logical notations, as Plato and Leibniz do, on the basis of a feeling that it doesmatter), we should perhaps be satisfied with the flat factual statement that Arethas actually did engage in such wholly eclectic symbolic compilation. As a scholar who wanted his copy of the Gorgiasas well equipped with annotation and apparatus as possible, Arethas preserved and incorporated logical scholia of every type. Such a scholarly eclecticism substitutes for the use of some standard symbolism as a tool for exploring logic the muddled historical record of what symbolisms have been tried; it suggests that various symbolic forms are non-functional and equivalent, where the emergence of a precise symbolic logic would require exactly the opposite suggestion. Arethas' scholia include division lambdas and trees, class-inclusion arcs, standard syllogism triangles, matrices, and two other sets of design. The most striking of these is a set reinterpreting the class-inclusion are as representing the architecture of argument. Whatever the inspiration of these figures, there can be no doubt that the terms, resting on pediments, are part of a form that

SYMBOLISM IN THE PLATONIC SCHOLIA

53

is artificial and architectural. (The ancestry of the design still shows in the inclusion of some arcs with abbreviated quantifiers which are architecturally non-functional in the design.) These scholia seem to be a record of a basic change that has taken place in the conception of logic. The suggestion of the logician as architect is inescapable; tight linkages of terms are invented or constructed, not traced and discovered, if this symbolism is in any way appropriate to its subject-matter. There is not likely to be any "natural" symbolism or notation suited to validating forms, but rather diverse conventional inventions which save space and are ornamental, reflecting the new notion of creativity and freedom, plus artifice, on the part of the logician. Whether Arethas himself invented this notation, I do not know. But he certainly saw no difference in appropriateness between his architecture and the more traditional, simpler, matrix forms. For at the top of folio 374V of the Clarkian, one of the handsomest architectural scholia, only half legible, seems to summarize exactly the same passage that an adjacent matrix and division diagram represents. The duplication is not logically functional, and the assumed symbolic equivalence not tenable. It has the accidental advantage for us, however, that we can completely restore the illegible portions of the architectural scholion, and confirm the hypothesis that matrix and building facade are equivalent by reading further letters in the latter scholion. The most interesting thing for the historian of logic is the inescapable suggestion of this design that arguments are framed by art, from linked terms, not traced in nature along lines of objective relation. Other features of Arethas' work also reflect the notion that spatial or geometrical design is ornamental rather than functional; the functional units are terms or sentences. A scholion to Theaet.I75e is a fine example: the lines are neatly arranged in a sort of pictorial design, and a vine with heart-shaped leaves added to the margin. Throughout, the texts of Arethas' scholia are arbitrarily arranged in patterns: wedges, hour-glass shapes, rarely anything rectangular or square; their inspiration seems not to be natural forms, and a more extraneous, ornamental use of space could hardly be imagined. The realistic vine adjoined as ornament typifies the eclectic imagination at work here: natural forms, too, may be ornamental, but the scholar seems to see and feel no reason for preferring one symbolism over any other. There seems no felt correspondence of form and content; there is a fine aesthetic sensitivity to the appearance of the page, but with it a loss of the feeling for functional schematization that, up to this point, seemed to be emerging in the Platonic tradition. It may be that at some future time a supplement to Greene's edition of the scholia, taking account of line arrangement and overall page design with some suitable system and classification, would be helpful in connection with study of the relation of form and matter reflected by this symbolism, though this element seems to have no immediate application to logical symbolism. VI The closest approach to a realization of the potentialities of geometrical symbolism for logic is a scholion on Gorgias495e. (The distinctiveness of the

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ROBERT S. BRUMBAUGH

schema also evidently caught Greene's eye, since his line drawing is an enlargement to triple the actual size of the little figure.) From the fact that W has the only version where abbreviated quantifiers are complete, and that the hand of B is tenth century (B2, which added to Arethas' notes the scholia common to BTW), we may be able with further study to determine the probable date of the inception of this schema. But, whatever its place and date of origin, this is the design where the geometrical symbolic logic latent in the ornaments and conventions of the tradition of logical scholia comes closest to explicit realization. In the first place, the argument is visualized as a set of relations plotted for four classes simultaneously, and this generalization beyond the triad of syllogism opens the way to a new notion of logical analysis. The four classes stand in different inclusion-exclusion relations, which necessitates the use of a quadrilateral rather than transitive arc design, and represents an enormous advance over simple arc or lune figures. A different design of connecting line is used to represent different qualities of relation, the curved line for negative, the straight for affirmative, on the left side of the figure. The base, representing the concluding inference, does not follow this convention. The abbreviated quantifiers remain functional adjuncts (particularly for the base), but are used in such a way that they can represent two different class relations, an inclusion and an exclusion, while the accompanying geometrical convention represents the (exclusive) quality of their relationalproduct. (Thus we get A exc B, B inc C given algebraically, while geometrically we get A exc/inc C.) This is the high point of logical symbolism; a few simple extensions and hardening of novelties into conventions, and a full-grown geometrical counterpart to our modern algebraic calculus of classes would have been available to logicallyminded readers of Plato. Alternatively, stabilization of another design which appears in one of Arethas' scholia, and in a number of scholia in T, could perhaps have led to a notation something like the Venn diagram. Where class inclusion relations are represented by linking arcs, the overlap of arcs is shown as a black triangle, the rest of the arc being left unshaded. This not only directs attention rhetorically to the crucial area and relation (where B equals AB), but the pattern of empty and shaded areas suggests that no B's are to be found outside of the AB class, whereas some are to be found within it. The difference in design is clear from comparison of a version in W, which uses the standard arcs, with T's version. But again, the functional power of this modification of signdesign as potential logical symbolism was not realized or exploited in the scholarly tradition responsible for the B, T, W scholia. As a final item of sign-design with special potentialities and interest, one might note that certain division diagrams in T distinguish some terms as signifying non-atomic classes. This is indicated either by a short jagged horizontal line, or an inverted "V", beneath the most complex classes and subclasses being divided. The design seems to offer only the obvious suggestion that these classes are not "atomic"; but a notation which had stabilized some convention for showing this distinction would have some power and suggestiveness in the hands of an able logician.

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SYMBOLISM IN THE PLATONIC SCHOLIA

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VII The conclusion to this preliminary survey must be, that there is a latent tendency towards a geometrical symbolic logic of classes reflected in certain of these scholia; but the tendency comes to the fore only in intermittent flickers, then fades out. There was in fact something valuable underlying these designs which no doubt helped to perpetuate their use by lending them a felt significance and suggestiveness; but the scholars who preserved them did not fully realize the proper use and direction of their modest geometrical innovations in annotation; and the incipient drive towards a complete, formal, non-Aristotelian calculus of classes remains an opportunity that was missed. This is not to deny that this tendency was felt and operative in the Hellenistic and Byzantine developments of logic; it was one of the dynamic vectors, of which Stoic propositional calculus and Aristotelian syllogistic were the other two, the resultant of which future study will likely show to have been a drastic modification of all three. Notes on thePlates
For technical reasons, our initial photographs of W were negative; and this has proved such a convenient convention for keeping the scholia from this source clearly distinguished, that it has been followed below. Figures from W and T are enlargements from the microfilms in the Yale Library Collection; figures from A and B are reproduced from the photographic facsimile editions of the former by Henri Omont, of the latter by F. W. Allen, except for Fig. IVf, below, which is from an ultra-violet photograph, and Fig. Ih, where we have had to copy Hensel's line drawing. In each case, photographs or drawings are of actual size. Figs. Ic (i) and Ic (ii) (P1. 7c, e). This figure shows the "double line" that, as "side of a square" produces an area of sixteen square feet. It is indexed in the text to the Boy's statement of his belief that "a double square comes from the double line". Fig. Ie (i) (P1. 7d). An earlier and neater version of this scholion is given below, Fig. IIIf. The figure gives an example each of arithmetic, harmonic, and geometric means. The present late version is of interest because of its concrete illustration of intact transferof a design from the ethical context of the Gorgiasto the cosmological discussion of the Timaeus. Fig. Ia (P1. 7a). A final figure illustrating the Menotheorem, showing that "the square on the diagonal is double the square on the side". The demonstration proceeds by summing up the number of half-squares in the two areas. The numbers within the larger square give the count of pairs of half-squares: I, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Fig. Ib (P1. 7b). This version, from W, is less complete than Fig. Ia; the omission of numbers makes its intention unclear. The present version is the one Greene followed (op.cit., I73), and which I thought should be emended to show calculation of the area of the inscribed square Imagination, (Plato'sMathematical Bloomington, 1954-hereafter cited as PMI-p. 29). With T's version, it is clear that no emendation is necessary. The wretched draftsmanship of the present figure should be noted, as it bears on the interpretation of Fig. Ih, below. Figs. le (ii), f, g (P1. 7j, h, f). Standard, somewhat rough drawings of the construction of the elementary triangles, of a tetrahedron, and of the first stage in the synthesis of the cube. Very late; included here to make the record of diagrams in T complete. Fig. Ih (P1. 7g). A small scholion, only in W, not in Greene. It is reproduced and discussed in Hensel, VindiziaePlatonicae,Berlin, I906, pp. 48-49. It is an illustration of the "diagonal of our diagonal" joke in Statesman 266A; and it makes sense, as a comparison of the way bipeds and quadrupeds walk, if the angle is intended to be a right angle, not acute, as Hensel's note shows. Compare the draftsmanship of the "square" in Fig. Ib, above.

56

ROBERT S. BRUMBAUGH

Fig. IIg (P1. 7i). This is the final "lineage of the Sophist", discovered after repeated uses of the method of division. It is the most extensive division diagram in the scholia. Figs. IIn, o, p (P1. 8a, c, e). Mixed arcs and matrices. Fig. IIIf (P1. 8g). An example of arcs in ratio theory. Definitions and an example of each are given of the three kinds of mean-arithmetic, geometric, harmonic-to illustrate an ethical context. (For later transferto a cosmological context, see Fig. le, above.) This scholion

is discussedin PMI, Fig. 78, p. 218. Comparison with Figs. 71-75,ibid.,pp. 2oI-3, suggests and aestheticuse of arcsto indicatebalanced verystrongly,I believe,that somemathematical had been developedand was familiarby the time Plato'sMyth of Er or linkedcomponents was written. Figs. IIIg, h, i (P1.8h, d, i). An attemptthat comes out badly. Poetry,as a kind of "public speaking",is includedin rhetoric,and all threehave a commongenus; but tragedy,as itself and no obviousschematicway to show its connection a speciesof poetry,is not co-ordinate, seemsto have occurredto the scholiasts. to Figs. IIIj, 1 (P1. 9a, b). An elaborate representationof Socrates' counter-instance Callicles'thesisthat pleasureis the good, and thus the man who is most pleased,having the presenceof most pleasure,has also the most good present,thus is the best man. (The design in the use of arcs a regression but actuallyseemsto represent lookscomplexand impressive, and not logicallyfunctional.) towardsomethingornamental Fig. IIIr (P1. 8f). Two syllogismsare derivedfrom Socrates'criticism of the thesis that is perception". "knowledge The firstis: All distantthingsare knowable Some distantthingsare not visible Some knowledgeis not perception. It is a thirdfiguresyllogism,mood AIO. The secondis: No knowledgeis sharpand dull Some visionis sharpand dull Some knowledgeis not perception. This is a secondfiguresyllogism,mood EIO. or "percepHere, as in the dialogue,"vision"is takenas the typical case of "sensation" tion"; and in fact it is the example of vision, with a potentialmetaphoricalextensionto doctrineseem most plausible. "intellectualvision",that makesthe Protagorean A AAI: third mood IIIs figuresyllogism, Fig. (P1.8b). All poetryis flattery All poetryis rhetoric Some rhetoricis flattery. that A sorites quantifiers showingthe lunedesignand abbreviated diagram, Fig. IIIw (P1. 8j). of syllogisms in thefirstfigure. The presentsoritesruns: becamestandardfor representation All beautifulthingsare useful All usefulthingshave some capacity All usefulthingshave some actual power is neededfor thejump fromhavingan abilityto do somethingto having (One furtherpremiss the actual powerexpressed by doing it.)
The arguments of which Arethas is diagramming the architecture are the following. Fig. IVa (P1. 9d) Rhetoricians and tyrants (believe they are powerful and doing good and evil by) Executing or exiling; (but in fact they) Do things which are neither intrinsically good or bad; Knowledge and reason are needed to judge

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57 The conclusion is that rhetoricians do not have reasons which they can act upon in their proper art, since, if they had, they would not believe deeds to be intrinsically good or bad which in fact are not so. None of those who do not do what they will have great power; Fig. IVb (P1.9c). All rhetoricians are among those who do not do what they will; No rhetoricians have great power All evils that are not painful are disgraceful, as is all Fig. IVc (Pl. 9f). injustice to its perpetrator. I cannot help thinking that this is a case where the scholion confuses the argument rather than clarifying it. Greene's drawing, by omitting the arcs and quantifiers connecting "evil" with "disgraceful", and "most painful" with "unjust acts .. ." gives a more sensible figure, and one probably closer to Arethas' intention(?). All that is good to do is nobly done Fig. IVd (Pl. 9e). All that is nobly done is done with justice All that is done with justice is suffered justly All that is suffered justly is good to do A simple sorites. Fig. IVe (P1. Iod). All temperate men are good, hence do well, therefore are happy. Syllogism in the first figure, mood AAA (Barbara). Here the diagram seems excellently suited to the argument. Fig. IVf (P1. 9g). The argument in question is that the rhetorician (I) will know what is just (2), hence will be just (3), hence will do what is just (4); thus it is necessarily false that the rhetorician will ever commit injustice (5)-which, however, Gorgias has said the rhetorician might do earlier in the discussion with Socrates. The figure just to the right of this architectural scholion represents part of this argument as a matrix: to know what is just (I) Knowledge to be [just] (2) State to act justly (3) Action One therefore expects the terms of the architectural schematization to be: AIKAIA EIAENAI AIKAIOIIPAI'EIN AIKAIOEEINAI AAIKEI PHTCIP corresponding to terms 5, 4, 3, 2, I of the argument as given above. Now, in fact the word in the second space from the left is DIKAIOPRAGEIN, but with the KAI written as a compendium; the first two letters in the next word are DI; and the bottom arc is labelled PSEUDEIS ANANKAIOS, with the psi, epsilon, upsilon somewhat run together. (I read these additional letters in I955, and Miss Ruth Barbour confirmed them. This much text can therefore be added to Greene's report of the scholion; and given this, the remainder of the restoration is a practical certainty.) The apparent redundancy of the matrix and the architectural design is somewhat puzzling. Figs. Vb, c (P1. Ioc, e). The argument being illustrated is that, since good and evil are contraries, and contraries never come into being and pass away simultaneously, whereas pleasure and pain always come into being and pass away simultaneously, no pleasure and pain are (as such) good and evil. This refutes any naive hedonistic identification of pleasure and pain with good and bad. (Note that in the version of this figure in W, Fig. Vb above, an oud.along the bottom line makes the conclusion explicit. Greene's drawing follows the version of T, which does not have this abbreviation.) In W, the figure appears earlier-at 493D, rather than 495E. Fig. Vd (P1. Iob). Men will what they do for an end, which is the good. Desire--desirable -that for the sake of which-what is aspired to-good-are the successive terms of the argument. Fig. Ve (P1. Iof). From Olympiodorus' analysis: "The fifth syllogism, proving that the just and the beneficial are the same."

SYMBOLISM IN THE PLATONIC SCHOLIA

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ROBERT S. BRUMBAUGH

Major: All beneficial things are noble; Minor: All noble things are just (Hence) All beneficial things are just. A clean-cut first-figure syllogism; as noted above, the darkened overlap of arcs is suggestive and peculiar. Fig. Vf (P1. Iog). A triple division of the good, posing the problem of the correct subclassification ofjustice. The good may be (I) desired for its own sake, as joy and harmless pleasures are; or (2) both for itself and for its consequences, as health, sight, and thinking are; or (3) only for the sake of its consequences, as exercise and medical treatment are. The broken line, as remarked above, seems to indicate the fact that "the Good" here is not being considered as a single "atomic" abstract entity or class. Figs. Vg, h (P1. Ioa, i). Since all who itch are pleased by scratching, if pleasure is the same as living happily, such men are happy. The inference is Socrates' deduced consequence of Callicles' over-enthusiastic hedonism. The difference in design between the figure in T and in B2, the latter of which is given for contrast, while they are not in fact functional here are certainly suggestive of designs that could have become so. Fig. Vi (P1. Ioj). A classification and subclassification of the arts. Of arts, some are concerned only with works, as painting; others, such as dialectic, only with words; but some with both works and words, and these are threefold: (I) either the principal concern is with works, as in medicine; or (2) it is rather with words, as, for example, in arithmetic; or (3) equally with words and actions, as draught-playing. The complex, non-simple nature of both the general class and its main subclass seem indicated by the design. Fig. Vj (P1. Ioh). The appropriate is divided into three subclasses: what truly does its work well, what functions well in some other way, and what will seem to function well. (Socrates is making Hippias distinguish between an "ornamental" and a "functional" conception of beauty.) Again, the broken line shows that "the appropriate" is notor is nothereto be takenas, an atomic class.